On May 10th, the life Eric Davidson knew got destroyed when a drunk hit-and-run driver hit him while Eric was riding his bike. Eric is today suffering a sever brain injury and our lives will never be the same. This is a blog about his recovery, the struggle myself as Eric’s wife, and our families are challenged with.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 (day 125)

When we arrived this morning Eric was not in his room. We found him outside in the courtyard with Dave and Trevor. It’s a beautiful day so we gave him some sunglasses which seemed to help. During the visit with Dave and Trevor, Eric was interactive, expressive and chatting, even though slightly hard to understand but pretty good. I asked him what time he woke up today and he said “7:30”.

After they left, we asked Eric if he wanted to do some speech practice, he agreed and did a wonderful job! We went through quite a few word/picture cards and he got all of them right, and at a good pace. Then we had him try the speech annunciation drills. Again he did great, impressive actually. He is still having a little trouble with the vowels and sticking out his tongue. Funny story… Marci asked if she could tell him a story, he agreed. She explained how, in the hospital, a few of the Docs (while he was “asleep”) kept asking/yelling at him to stick out his tongue while pinching his ear very hard. He would not, ever. Eric said, “Grandpa”… then said, “growing up, he told me, never to stick out my tongue”. We laughed and finally understood why he wouldn’t do it for the Docs.

Eric spoke with Anna-Carin on the phone, he sure misses her and told her he loves her very much both in english and swedish! :>

After that we returned to the room, Uncle Dick and cousin Greg arrived. Eric was very happy to see them. We had a good visit with Greg explaining to Eric that his knees will get better everyday and that he’s really impressed with his progress even from last weekend. Eric smiled and joked around with both Greg and Uncle Dick, it was so Eric and wonderful to see. Then he was pretty tired, so we left to let him rest and hopefully sleep. Uncle Dick said he’d return in the afternoon with Aunt Joyce.

When Marci and I came back, Eric was awake but pretty tired. He didn’t want to do much except watch TV and try to sleep. We hung out while he rested.

Then we were up and outside. Eric was sad. We asked if he wanted us to leave and he gave us a thumbs up, we said OK. Then on the way back into the facility, he got up out of the wheelchair and walked into the room and got the walker. We walked around the place. When we arrived at the nurses station, he was trying to ask a question. When we could not quite understand, Marci got him a pad and pen. He wrote, “What is the fastest way to the street?” We told him “You can’t leave yet, you need to get stronger, then you can go home.” He didn’t like that. Once back in the room, he wrote, “This sucks”. We agreed. It was sad. We tried our best to help him feel better but with being tired and sad we didn’t have much luck. He then made a hand motion for us to leave while keeping his head down. We said “OK, we’ll see you in the morning.” Then kissed him good-bey.

Last thing I remember, is that while in the bed this afternoon Eric told me, “I feel different.” He rubbed his head. I told him I understand and that things are different but he is still the same person, just a little different now and that’s OK.

Eric and Anna-Carin, we love you both incredibly and are here for you no matter what, always!!